“Army brat.”
That was how my father, Servaas Gerardu, described himself when he talked about growing up in the Dutch East Indies. The phrase fit. This was a childhood across Java, shaped by military assignments, constant movement, and the changing landscapes of the Dutch East Indies. By the time he was a teenager, he had already lived in Malang, Tjimahi, Batoedjadjar, Batavia, Djocjakarta, Semarang, Magelang, Kalidjati, and finally Buitenzorg (see Historical Notes below for more detail), due to his father’s KNIL (Koninklijk Nederlands-Indisch Leger, or Royal Netherlands East Indies Army) military assignments across Java.
Unlike many Indo families whose stories are rooted in one city or stretch back through generations in the same place, my father’s childhood was shaped by movement (“Indo” is a term commonly used for people of mixed European and Indonesian ancestry in the Dutch East Indies). New houses, new schools, new friends. Home was never tied to a single neighborhood or family compound. It was something larger and less fixed.
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